“And don’t you make any noise;”
So toddling off to his trundle-bed
He dreamt of the pretty toys.
It is the father we want, not the child.
Example 5 (from the Elegy in a Country Churchyard). We read the passage slowly, not because we desire to imitate the slow movement of the objects described, but because we are impressed by their solemnity.
It may be thought that the principle here discussed has no value except for advanced pupils or for those who desire to make a specialty of reading. This is a grave error and one that has had much to do with the spiritless reading of our schools. At least one-half of the selections in our readers, above the second, present opportunities for the expression of what we have termed sympathy. In the chapter on Values we observed that there were ever-varying phases of thought and feeling, each one of which would be read with a different atmosphere. Let us look at another complete poem solely with a view to applying the principles of phases and of atmosphere:
Gusty and raw was the morning;
A fog hung over the seas,
And its gray skirts, rolling inland,